A new British Council report looks into why students around the world use agencies when applying to study abroad, and examines regional differences.
The use of agents to help facilitate study abroad has always been a contentious issue. While some believe that they are largely unscrupulous, pushing students towards paths to which they may not be suited in order to line their pockets, their enduring popularity indicates that for many students, they provide a useful – if not essential – service.
Education Intelligence, a global service provided by the British Council which aims to understand and analyze global trends in higher education, has produced a report looking into why students from around the world use agents.
The goal of the report, entitled ‘Student Insight: Why Students Use Agents’, is “to provide insight into possible alternatives to using education agents and how the supply of information could be customer-focused and led in future”.
Regional variation
The results show that there are significant regional differences in both the usage of agents, and the reasons for doing so. East Asian students, it was found, use agents the most, with more than 50% of students who were thinking about studying aboard in many countries, including China and South Korea, indicating that they would use an agent.
This wasn’t universal across the region though, with students from Japan and Indonesia, among others, less keen.
A section of the report which focuses on China, the country with highest levels of agent usage (English language and foundation course applicants are the keenest users), found that there was also variation within its borders.
Students from Beijing found that agents were responsible and prompt, while those from Guangzhou complained that they did not provide enough information about the visa process. Students from Hong Kong seem to be a bit more independently well-informed and savvy, stating they did not really gain anything from using agents.
The internet, of course, plays a large part in the research done by the latter, and it is precisely a lack of reliable access which causes students in Africa to employ the services of agents.
Pros and cons
However, despite their necessity in providing hard-to-find information, scandals involving fraudulent agents have eroded trust, leading students to look carefully at agents’ reputations before using them. Along with Central Asia and Latin America, Africa has the greatest regional variation.
South Asian students are most likely to use an agent to help them navigate the sometimes tricky task of obtaining a visa. Students who studied overseas previously were less likely to use an agent.
South Asia, it should be noted, is another region in which some questionable practices have come to light. And finally, Europe, due to the ease of obtaining information and the standardization of education, is the area in which agents are used the least.
The report concludes that affordable and ethical opportunities exist to provide students with the information they currently get from agents. Interviews with students revealed that the research method that would be most appreciated by potential international students would be talking to a current international student at a university from their current home city or nearby. This is a method, it continues, which universities which wanted to internationalize could adopt cheaply and quickly.